My grandparents (mother's side) were both from Sweden. Grandpa was an overseer on a big Swedish estate. Grandma was a peasant girl. They fell in love, but the rigid caste system wouldn't allow them to marry. Grandpa came to the U.S., worked on a farm, and saved his money. After two or three years he'd saved enough to bring his fiancee to America. They were married in the U.S. Grandpa was a farmer and grandma was a housewife.
Grandpa and grandma spoke no English when they came to America and they both learned because there was no “English as a second language” program. They studied and took the test for U.S. citizenship, given in English, passed, and were naturalized as citizens.
So, all you Black racists, exactly how many of you were owned as slaves by my grandparents on their extensive plantations in Illinois? Eh? Illinois was never a slave state and Sweden had no Blacks as slaves. White guilt on my part? I don't think so. Go bother your Muslim brothers that still practice chattel slavery. You'll feel right at home.
Actually, once it was. When it joined the Union there was a nominal number of ex-French nationals living in Illinois (as in Champaign, Joliet, Belleville, Des Plaines) who had slaves. They were grandfathered, and the last of these slaves died or was manumitted sometime after the War of 1812.
Thereafter, Illinois wrote a Black Code to keep black immigrants from the South out of the State (part of the Free Soil movement that put Lincoln in the White House eventually, after it was captured by the Republican Party). There was a penalty for a free black settling in Illinois. The remedy was to take his freedom away and "sell him south" to the big plantations down the Mississippi River. Blacks learned not to tarry in Illinois. That part of the criminal code survived the Civil War for a few years.